New national poll: Trump surges, Bush third

Donald Trump leads the GOP presidential field by a significant margin, according to a new Quinnipiac University national poll released Thursday.

The poll also indicates that Ohio Gov. John Kasich could ride a post-announcement bump onto the stage for next week’s debate in Cleveland, despite fears that Trump’s wall-to-wall media coverage had overshadowed his late entry into the race.

Story Continued Below

Fully 20 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning voters said they would vote for Trump if the primary were held today — the largest share any single candidate has received in Quinnipiac’s seven surveys over the past two years. That puts the brash real-estate magnate ahead of the two other candidates who earn double-digit support: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker at 13 percent and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 10 percent.

That’s enough to vault Kasich into the top 10 in POLITICO’s analysis of the most recent live-caller polling of the GOP primary — and potentially onto the dais at the Fox News debate on Aug. 6. Kasich replaces former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who earned just 2 percent of the vote in the Quinnipiac poll and slipped to 11th in the POLITICO average.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie stays at ninth in the average thanks to his 3 percent haul in Thursday’s Quinnipiac poll. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who earned 2 percent in the Quinnipiac poll, and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, at 1 percent, are tied for 12th place in the POLITICO average — a full percentage point behind Kasich for the 10th-place spot.

Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and former New York Gov. George Pataki also earned just 1 percent of the vote — and are all well behind in the average.

Trump’s strength in the poll comes primarily from male voters: He earns 24 percent of the vote among men. But he also leads among female voters, with 15 percent of the vote to Bush’s 12 percent and Walker’s 9 percent. (The poll was conducted July 23-28 — mostly before controversial statements by Trump’s attorney about an incident in which Trump’s ex-wife accused Trump of assaulting her, and entirely before The New York Times reported Trump had called a female attorney deposing him “disgusting” for asking to take a break so that she could use a breast pump.)

There was little ideological difference between Trump’s supporters and those of the rest of the field. He earned 23 percent of the vote among tea party supporters and 20 percent among both white evangelicals and voters who said they were “very conservative.”

Some Republican political consultants have suggested Trump’s lead in the polls is inflated because the surveys don’t screen out Republicans or independents who are less likely to vote — or barred from participating in their particular states.

In the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton maintains her wide advantage over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, 55 percent to 17 percent — with Vice President Joe Biden, who was included in the survey, at 13 percent. That is statistically unchanged from two months ago, when Clinton led Sanders, 57 percent to 15 percent. (Biden has not indicated he is running, though he has not ruled it out.)

But there are warning signs for Clinton beyond the primary. Her favorability rating reached an all-time low in the new survey: 41 percent. Fully half of voters now view her unfavorably. Among male voters, only one in three views her favorably — and female voters are split on Clinton: 47 percent favorable, 43 percent unfavorable.

Two months ago, similar percentages of all voters viewed her favorably (45 percent) and unfavorably (47 percent).

Clinton now runs neck-and-neck with the top GOP contenders other than Trump, whom she would defeat, the poll shows. Bush leads Clinton by 1 percentage point, while she edges Walker by 1 point. But she would beat Trump by 12 points.

Biden runs virtually even with Clinton against the Republicans, while Sanders would trail Bush and Walker each by 5 points.

As for Trump, a 59 percent majority of voters views him unfavorably, with 27 percent who have a favorable opinion. But his image ratings have actually improved over the past two months: In Quinnipiac’s late May poll — taken before he announced his candidacy — just 20 percent viewed him favorably, and 69 percent viewed him unfavorably.

The poll of 1,644 self-identified registered voters carries an overall margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points. Subsamples of 681 Democrats and 710 Republicans have margins of error of plus or minus 3.8 and 3.7 percentage points, respectively.